Until it was raided by the Vikings, Tamworth was known as a royal centre for Mercian kings. Led by Ubbe Ragnarrsson and Ivar the Boneless, the siege of the town from 873-874 AD dismantled its standing as a fortress and forced its monarch into hiding.
Few places do lore and giant-killings quite like Tamworth, which is a roundabout way of leading into an FA Cup third-round tie against Tottenham Hotspur, but the visit of Ange Postecoglou’s men is a chance to write more history.
“It’s lifted the whole town,” chairman Bob Andrews tells The i Paper ahead of Sunday’s tie.
“It’s going to be a big challenge but that’s what football’s all about. For us it could be a big leveller because they’re not used to a small ground, smaller pitch and the 4G pitch.
“The whole town is being geared up to watch it on television – we can probably only get 3,700 in the ground with all the cameras and equipment, but fortunately it being on ITV, all the people will be in the pubs around the town watching it.”
They face the competition’s eight-time winners as the lowest-ranked remaining name in the hat, currently sitting 16th in the National League. The journey even to get that far has been extraordinary.
Not two years ago Tamworth were still playing in the Southern League Premier Central, English football’s seventh rung, before back-to-back promotions to the National League North and subsequently the National League rocketed them to within touching distance of the EFL.
Like so many teams at this level, Tamworth is as much about the people around it as what happens on the pitch. The club is still less than 100 years old, having replaced the defunct Tamworth Castle FC with the help of a local newspaper campaign.
Those threats to their existence never really went away. In the 1980s, without a takeover from local businessmen – including Andrews, the current chair – they may never have stayed afloat.
His tenure took them from record low attendances and the financial pits all the way back to the Southern League and, in May 1989, the greatest day in their history: glory over Sudbury Town in the FA Vase final, won in a replay at Peterborough United via a trip to Wembley.
“It was basically bankrupt – in a bit of a state,” Andrews recalls.
“All the facilities were very old, not had anything done to them for a long time, so we had to set about doing bits and pieces – the pitch initially, then the stands and the dressing rooms. It took us quite a few years to get anywhere near.
“I was there as a player before, only a youth team player. I took over with two other guys in 1984. Those two guys are not with us any longer so it’s been left to me since the early 90s.
“We’re all local people. I was born a quarter of a mile from the ground, one of the other guys was about half a mile from the ground. [Former co-owner] John Bayliss was a Birmingham lad but he played for Tamworth’s first team as a player for six or seven years before he retired.”
It is fitting that it is Andrews at the helm for another momentous domestic cup run.
This is just the fourth time Tamworth have graced the FA Cup third round, with goalkeeper Jasbir Singh the hero in the 4-3 shootout win over League One side Burton Albion in the last round.
Third-tier Huddersfield Town were overcome in the first round before Burton scored the opening goal in the 92nd minute of the second – only to concede again two minutes later to take it to penalties.
“The club’s on a massive journey,” says Scott Farrington, the Tamworth Supporters’ Club chairman.
“We’ve been champions two years in a row, we’re in a full-time league and little Tamworth, we’re part time. You’ve got York City, Sutton United, they were in the league last year. We’re competing, but it’s difficult.”
The clubhouse was full for the live screening of the third-round draw. It may not have amused Spurs fans to hear the chorus of “Tottenham get battered, everywhere they go” from a group of children in front of the TV as the numbers were picked out of the pot.
What strikes so close to the bone is that this season, the essence of the Postecoglou project is likely to stand or fall on the domestic cups. The Australian is a coach well-suited to a proud FA Cup tradition forged by early managers John Cameron and Peter McWilliam, later embossed by Nicholson, Burkinshaw and Venables.
Only Arsenal and Manchester United have lifted this trophy more regularly in 154 years, but their last captain to do so was Gary Mabbutt in 1991. “Mabsy” is now 63 years of age.
Andy Peaks’ Tamworth are dreaming of a famous day out of their own and few can begrudge them that. Peaks is still working as a teacher, desperate to become a full-time coach.
“He [Peaks] came in and we were struggling two leagues below where we are now,” Farrington says.
“His ambition was to keep us safe, which he did and then the following season he got a team together on a low budget and he just got the team playing for him, fighting for the club. Whatever he’s done in that dressing room, it’s amazing.”
The tie will be littered with other individual stories. Tamworth can only train twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Singh, the keeper, is a surveyor who works on site by day. Tom Tonks, the midfielder who has gone viral for his long throw-ins, sells sandwiches.
Earlier this year Tom McGlinchey was playing for Coalville Town in the United Counties League. Academy scholar Zach McKenzie only signed his first-team papers in October. It was veteran defender Haydn Hollis who scored the decisive penalty to get them here.
Nevertheless this is an occasion which momentarily threatened to lose its magic, overshadowed by a row over ticket price hikes. A home ticket at The Lamb will typically set you back £18-20.
When Spurs come to town that rises up to £42 a head, £29 for the under-10s who weren’t born the last time Tamworth enjoyed a money-spinner of such proportions, a 2-0 defeat to Everton at Goodison Park in 2012.
“The tickets flew out,” Farrington points out. “They went on general sale on Sunday at 6pm and they sold out within the hour.
“Tottenham and Tamworth agree the pricing, it’s not just Tamworth. Tamworth only end up with 45 per cent, Tottenham get 45 per cent and the FA gets 10 per cent. So when you break it down, Tamworth only end up with about £17 which is less than we charge for a league game… all that money will get invested back into the club.”
The FA Cup is still a lifeline at this level, and with replays scrapped the takings from 12 January 2025 will be referred to in the books for years to come. TV money is a welcome boost too.
In so many ways Tamworth is a classic post-industrial Midlands market town, one which has seen unprecedented change over the past three decades. For 90 minutes on Sunday, whatever happens, more will be added to that tapestry.
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